A Magic of Dawn (73 page)

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Authors: S. L. Farrell

BOOK: A Magic of Dawn
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His feet ached, his back throbbed with every step. They had passed three villages so far in the day’s march, all of them deserted—Tototl had allowed the warriors to scavenge for food and supplies, then ordered the houses burned. The smoke was still smeared across the sky behind them.
Niente wanted to do little more than lie down and let the warriors and nahualli leave him in the dirt. He was grateful when Tototl called a halt to the quick march. He sank down in the grass alongside the road and accepted the bread, cheese, and water that one of the nahualli handed him, gulping down the sweet coolness. He saw a shadow looming near him, and sat up. Tototl was watching him.
“I will get you a horse, Uchben Nahual.”
“I’ll be fine in a few moments, High Warrior.”
“I will get you a horse,” Tototl answered. “I need the Uchben Nahual to be ready when we begin the attack tonight.”
Niente had rarely talked to Tototl, since the High Warriors, with the exception of the Tecuhtli with the Nahual, rarely had interaction with the nahualli. He found himself looking at the man’s painted face and wondering what he might actually be thinking. “We’re that close, then?”
“We’ll see the tops of the houses when we cross the next rise. The scouts have told me that there are troops readying to meet us. The battle will begin very soon now.” For a few breaths, Tototl was silent, and Niente was content to sit on the grassy bank of the road. The breeze was fragrant with the scent of this land. Then Tototl stirred. “What did you see when you looked in the scrying bowl, Uchben Nahual? I watched you, watched your face, and I don’t believe that you told Tecuhtli Citlali everything.”
“I told him the truth,” Niente insisted. “Nahual Atl saw the same.”
Tototl’s mouth twisted under the paint and ink that adorned his face. “Your son is not you, Uchben Nahual. He may be one day, but not yet. You were holding back something you saw, something that frightened you. I saw it in your face, Niente. I want to know—did you see us defeated?”
Niente shook his head.
I saw our victory here, and its terrible cost. I saw that it might be averted, and I saw that there the future was too confused and tangled to predict.
“No,” he said.
“I’m not afraid of dying,” Tototl said. He was staring northward along the road, as if he could already see the city. “Dying well in battle is the end that every High Warrior looks for. It’s not a fear of dying; I’m afraid of the cost of this to the Tehuantin.” Tototl looked down again at Niente, and hope sprang up in him, a hope that the warrior might understand what Citlali could not. “Is that what you’re afraid of also, Uchben Nahual?” Tototl asked
Niente’s throat seemed to close under Tototl’s steady, unblinking regard. He nodded silently.
“So you’ve seen something.” This time Tototl said it with certainty. Niente shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve seen too many paths, High Warrior. Too many, and all of them uncertain. But . . .” He inhaled, long and slow.
Can you trust this man? Could this be a trap he’s set for you, maybe even one that Citlali and Atl have set?
“Let me ask you this: if you killed a warrior in challenge, you would claim that you have won a victory. But what if in killing that warrior, you have in turn so inflamed his son that when
he
becomes a warrior, he brings an army and destroys everything that you’ve built, destroys everything you cherish so completely that it cannot be recovered ? Was your initial victory worth winning, then?”
“That would depend,” Tototl said, “on whether you could tell me—without doubt—that the son would do all this.”
Niente was shaking his head. “The future is never entirely certain,” he told the warrior. “Even what happens in the next moment might change, if Axat wills it. But what if I could tell you that this was the likely outcome? Would you hold your sword stroke, then?”
“It would depend on whether holding my sword stroke cost me my own life,” Tototl said. “No warrior wants to give the enemy their life freely. I would think the same would be true of a nahualli.”
“That’s what I might say in your place,” Niente said.
Tototl’s head cocked slightly to one side. He grunted something that might have been assent. “Since you say the future is always uncertain, would
you
give your full support to a High Warrior, Uchben Nauhual, even if you thought it might be the wrong path?”
“That’s a nahualli’s duty,” Niente answered. A quick amusement crossed Tototl’s face, and he knew the warrior understood that he hadn’t fully answered the question.
“I will get you a horse, Uchben Nahual,” Tototl said to Niente.
 
“She was with him? You’re
certain
it was her?”
Sergei nodded. “It was Rochelle, Hïrzgin. So at least that much of what she told me would seem to be the truth. Rochelle was raised as Nico’s sister by the White Stone. Whether she knows that he’s not really her brother . . . ?” Sergei raised a tired shoulder. “I’m not sure she understands that.”
Sergei and Brie were sitting astride their horses, overlooking the fields around the Avi a’Sutegate where the Garde Kralji was encamped. There were too few of them, Sergei knew—given the report the scouts had brought back of the size of the Westlander forces advancing toward them. Though the offiziers were running the gardai through maneuvers, the troops looked sluggish and lost. They were not trained for this: open, full-scale combat against another organized and trained force. That much had been shown in the debacle of the Old Temple, when even the equally untrained Morellis had been able to hold them at bay for too long. The Garde Kralji was a glorified personal guard and policing unit, not an army battalion.
The battle won’t be won here,
Sergei reminded himself.
It will be won across the River A’Sele, with the Hïrzg and the Garde Civile. We just have to hold our own here, hold them back long enough that the Garde Civile can return and rescue us.
He was fairly certain they would need that rescue, and he wasn’t particularly hopeful that it would be coming.
“They look terribly clumsy and slow, and I’m not at all impressed with their offiziers,” Brie said next to him, as if she had overheard his thoughts. She was dressed in full armor over a quilted tashta and wore a sword at her side, though her helm was still lashed to the pommel of her saddle, her brown hair braided and hanging low down her back. She looked entirely comfortable in the martial outfit—much, he thought, as Allesandra did when she commanded the field troops. It was a shame, he thought, that the two of them had been so long sundered. Allesandra’s son had married someone much like his matarh, either unwittingly or consciously. “I wish I had brought the Garde Brezno as well. These Garde Kralji are going to need strong leadership on the field, or they’ll break the first time the fighting gets difficult.”
“Indeed,” Sergei answered.“The Kraljica and the Hïrzgin must be the ones to give them that. Commandant cu’Ingres, I’m afraid, is still troubled by his injuries, and A’Offizier ci’Santiago is, well, let’s just call him inexperienced.”
“Where
is
the Kraljica?”
“On her way, I expect. We should see her any time now.”
Brie made a noise of assent. He saw her lean forward in her saddle, leather creaking. She was peering toward the south. “Is that another of our scouts? He’s riding fast . . .” She pointed, and Sergei saw a cloud of dust far away along the avi. His own vision was poor, and he couldn’t quite make out the rider or the colors.
“It may be,” he said. “Whoever it is, they’re coming fast. There must be news.”
The two of them flicked the reins of their horses, cantering down to the road to meet the rider. They were joined by A’Offizier ci’Santiago as the rider came galloping up, his mount lathered with effort. The rider saluted them.
“The Westlanders,” he said, panting. “Not far down the road . . . A thousand or more . . . All along the road.” He stopped, catching his breath. “A few turns of the glass and they’ll be here,” he said. “They’re coming at a fast march, and they have several of their spellcasters with them, and the makings of siege machines with them as well. We need to be ready.”
Ci’Santiago nodded, but he did nothing. Sergei sighed. “We’ll need to send for Talbot and the sparkwheelers—A’Offizier, perhaps you can give this man a fresh horse and have him bear the message. Hïrzgin . . .”
“I’ll take the field command of the troops until the Kraljica arrives,” she told Sergei. “Ambassador, you and Commandant cu’Ingres can see to the main strategy here in the command tents.” Sergei could see her already looking at the landscape and deciding where to place the troops for best advantage. “I’ll need signalers, cornets, and runners, and I’ll want to talk to the offiziers. A’Offizier ci’Santiago, I need you to arrange that immediately. What are you waiting here for? There’s no time, man. Go!”
Ci’Santiago was gaping at her, but he shut his mouth and saluted as Sergei stifled a laugh. The man turned his horse and galloped away; the scout following him. Brie was staring south, her mouth set. Sergei thought he could see smoke rising from the horizon.
“I do believe you frightened the poor man,” Sergei told her, and she sniffed through her nose. “He’s probably already complaining about the demon woman from Firenzcia.”
“I’m happy to be the demon woman if it means we survive this,” she told him. “Do you think we can, Ambassador?”
“Would I be here if I didn’t?” he answered, and hoped she couldn’t hear the lie.
 
Nico heard the lock to the house gates snick open under Rochelle’s ministrations; she grinned toward Nico as she slipped the thin pieces of metal back into their packet. “Easy,” she said, pushing the gates open; Nico slid inside ahead of her, but he felt her put a hand on his shoulder almost immediately. He glanced back at her from under the hood that masked his head, the cloak that disguised his green robes heavy around him.
“Something’s wrong here,” Rochelle said.
“What do you mean?”
“Listen,” she answered.
The street outside the gates was crowded with people leaving the city. They could hear their voices: the calls, the arguments, the cries of children too young to understand the panic of their parents and relatives. There were the creak and groans of the carts, the shuffling of feet on the pavement, the whistles of utilinos vainly trying to direct traffic and quell the inevitable confrontations. “There’s all this noise out there,” she told him. “But inside here—the staff should be scurrying around, getting things ready for whatever, but there’s
nothing.
The shutters to the windows are all closed and probably locked, and I don’t hear anything at all. It’s too quiet here.”
“What are you telling me?” His voice was a husk. He already knew the answer, could feel it in a despair that settled low in his stomach.
“I don’t think she’s there, Nico. I think she’s gone already. I’m sorry.”
Nico pushed past Rochelle, striding angrily toward the front doors of Varina’s house. It was locked, but rather than wait for Rochelle, he kicked hard at it and the wood around the lock cracked. He kicked again, and the door opened.
“Subtle,” Rochelle said behind him.
He ignored her, stepping into the marbled entranceway. He was certain now that Rochelle was right; the servants should have come running, perhaps ready to defend the house, but there was no one in sight. “Varina?” he called. He thought he saw a cat dart across the hallway ahead of him. Otherwise, there was no response. He heard Rochelle enter the house behind him; glancing over his shoulder, he saw that she was holding her knife, the blade naked in her hand. “We won’t need that,” he said.
“Probably not. But it makes me feel better.”
He shrugged. He walked slowly down the hallway, glancing into the reception rooms to either side. The furniture there was covered with sheets; the cat glared at him from atop a blanketed couch, then went back to licking its front paws. He continued to move through the house: the sunroom, a library, the kitchens—they were all the same, empty, with every indication that Varina didn’t expect to return here soon. He heard Rochelle calling him from upstairs, and he followed the sound of her voice. She’d put the knife in its sheath, and was standing at the door to what had to be a nursery. The furniture here, too, was covered. She opened the drawers of a dresser along one wall. “Empty,” she told him. “I told you—Serafina’s not here, Nico. The Numetodo’s taken her elsewhere.”

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